My gray striped cat, Little One, was a most incredibly loyal cat. I had her from 1977 till 1989, when she passed away. She would sit by my side, on my bed, while I spent hours upon hours writing articles, essays, short stories and plays.

Remembering Little One

By Richard Mabey Jr.

One of my most dearest friends that I have ever had in my entire life, so far, was my gray striped cat, Little One. I found Little One with her mother, whom I named Mother Cat, in a local park. It was late autumn. Both dear cats were just skin and bones when I found them.

I took both cats home. My sister Patti and I nourished them, cared for them, made beds for them out of old blankets and old cardboard boxes. We took them to the vet. The vet said that had I not rescued them, when I did, that they both would have probably died within a day or two. Also, it was late October when I brought them home to live with us at the old Mabey Homestead, so they would have never survived that harsh winter between the end of 1977 and the beginning of 1978.

This is very sad. Very sad. Mother Cat lived with us for about five years. Both cats slept inside the house at night. As soon as morning came they would be anxious to go outside. One day Mother Cat took a walk toward the forest, behind our home, and sadly never returned. I cried my heart out for her loss. She was such an endearing cat.

Little One was a very loyal cat. Often times, when I worked at my desk in my room, she would lay on my bed to keep me company. During the time period of the late 1970’s and onto the early 1980’s, I wrote four plays, all of which were later produced at different places. Whenever I would hit a writer’s block, I would turn around and pet Little One on the head. She would let me pet her for a while, then she would take one of her front paws and bat my hand. It was as if she was saying, “okay, that’s enough, get back to work.”

This was during the era when I worked for a small company in East Hanover that distributed first-aid supplies. I wrote product descriptions for their catalogues. I also wrote and edited the twice-monthly company newsletter that was mailed out to all the company salespeople in the country. I liked writing for the company newsletter, but writing product descriptions was drudgery. You have to really stretch your imagination to make a finger splint sound exciting.

At my desk, on the left hand side of my old electric typewriter, before the age of computers, I would keep my hand written notes. Frequently, Little One would jump from my bed to that little area of my desk. She would just calmly sit there and watch me type on my typewriter. She was such a loyal cat.

In 1989 Little One went to Cat Heaven. It was such as sad time. She was a good cat, a loyal cat and she kept me on the straight and narrow, to stay focused on completing an article or scene of a play. I remember her with great fondness.